


as the mirror says we're older

by ThisJoyAndI



Series: SansaWillasWeek2015 [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, F/M, SansaWillasWeek - Day Four
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 19:38:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4534761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisJoyAndI/pseuds/ThisJoyAndI
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(i will not look the other way) <br/>It’s the Great Depression, but Sansa has Willas, and she’s never been so happy. ‘As long as she can come home to Willas and his tender smile, Sansa thinks that everything shall be alright in the end.’</p>
            </blockquote>





	as the mirror says we're older

Historians shall call these years ‘The Great Depression’, but Sansa has never felt happier.

Her belly may ache terribly from an increasing lack of food, and her pale skin might be dry and brittle due to the time she spends amongst the chemicals in the factory, but she hardly cares. Gone is the proud girl of her youth, for there is no time, no room, for pride in her life now, not when so many, including herself, are struggling to scrap by. What use, what good, is pride when her stomach is empty, and the coins in her purse are dwindling at an alarming rate?

Willas loves her despite her cracking skin and shedding hair, and that is more than enough for her.

Perhaps she should wish that they could love each other in better circumstances, love each other in a time where they do not shiver at night because the blankets are so threadbare, but they are together _now_ , they are happy  _now_ , and truly, that is all she cares about. Willas is all she has, members of her family either buried or scattered across the country in desperate attempts to find work, and she will not permit the circumstances in which they have to exist to get the better of her, to get the better of their love.

She has known Willas since she was just a wee girl, placing a handkerchief embroidered with her initials into his hand when he left for the war, a bright-eyed boy of only seventeen. He’d lied about his age, as had so many boys she knew, all of them desperate to serve for King and country, desperate to bring glory to their family. But none had been so eager as Willas to enlist, none so dedicated.

His father fought in the second Boer War, and so Willas had begun to believe in an absurd idea, thought that he needed to serve in this new war in order to truly gain his father’s affection. It had been, and still is, an incredulous idea, but it was one that no one could shake from his head. Sansa had spent every night on her knees silently praying that he would return safely, would return whole, so they could marry like he had promised before he left, pressing a kiss tenderly to her cheek.

But when Willas returned, his left leg now ended abruptly at the knee, Sansa’s prayers for him to return to her whole seemingly going unanswered.

And despite her desire not to, despite her realisation that no matter what, this was still the boy she loved, she had screamed at the sight of him, his eyes bloodshot and skin clammy to the touch. Shell-shock, the doctors said, but the diagnosis was never of no comfort to her when Willas so often awoke screaming and spent his days staring at her as if he had never seen her before, as if he didn’t love her with his entire being.

It took months and months for him to physically heal, months in which she patiently changed his bandages and sponged his feverish brow with warm water, murmuring softly about anything and everything to him as she worked. The day he took her hand in his and whispered her name, well that was the day she finally knew that everything was going to be okay, no matter what had been taken from them.

And Willas is still the man she loved, the man she’ll always love, and she was never going to stop loving him just because he returned home without a leg.  Their marriage happens one afternoon in the local church, flowers threaded through her auburn braids and war medals pinned to Willas’ chest. 

Weeks before, the doctors had fitted him with a wooden stump, a stump that he both abhorred and desperately depended on to maintain some semblance of normality. It clicked, clicked, clicked every time he walked, but the sound is never as beautiful than the moment he walked her back down the aisle, Sansa Tyrell at last.

But they are no longer the bright-eyed youths of seventeen and fifteen they were so many years ago, their whole lives in front of them to spend together in bliss. Willas still suffer from nightmares, and there is nothing she can do to comfort him, nothing she can say that shall make him feel better. More often than not she goes without dinner so Willas is able to eat something, making excuses so he does not feel guilty for taking food away from her, even though he is so very hungry himself. Her husband reads the same five books he has had in his possession for many, many years, reads them over and over again until the pages become brittle, the covers crack, and he can long since recite the story from memory. Sansa longs for the day she shall be able to buy him a new book, but for now the small purse in which her money jingles is to be spent only on the necessities.  

Willas had received money from the army for his service and injury, but that small sum was quickly spent on his medical treatment. Whatever meagre amount had been left over she’d allocated accordingly to making his life more comfortable, making the existence of the man she loved completely and utterly somewhat pleasant, so that she might one day look at him and see the man he had once been looking back at her, the man who had not been so devastated by war.

There is nothing left of his payment now, even though they desperately need it. She has to make do as best she can, but it is become more and more difficult each and every day. 

Their lives are a harsh, meagre existence, one that has required her to put aside her pride and seek work wherever she can find it, put aside her pride and accept charity where it is offered, but as long as she can come home to Willas and his tender smile, Sansa thinks that everything shall be alright in the end.

For the suffering of the world around them, their suffering, it cannot last forever. Things will change, they  _must_  change, but the love she and Willas share never shall.


End file.
